STEVE EMBER: The atmosphere is about twenty-percent oxygen and eighty percent nitrogen from Earth’s surface to where space begins at one-hundred-twenty kilometers up. Yet up at about five-thousand-four hundred meters the air pressure is only about half of what it is on the ground. At about nineteen-thousand meters, the air is so thin and the amount of oxygen so small that a person needs a lot of special equipment to survive.
A well-known American flyer, Wiley Post, designed one of the first successful devices to protect a pilot at extreme heights. In nineteen-thirty-three, he developed protective clothing that made it possible for him to fly very high. Today, aircraft are designed to prevent air pressure changes at extreme heights. But this was not yet possible in nineteen thirty-three.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Wiley Post made this protective clothing with the help of the Phillips Petroleum Company and the BF Goodrich Company. It appeared to be something a person would wear to stay underwater for long periods of time. A large device that looked like a can surrounded the pilot’s head. A small window in the front permitted him to see.
Wiley Post’s protective clothing was made of rubber. It could hold oxygen and provide the needed air pressure to protect his body from the lack of pressure at extreme heights. This protective suit was only used a few times, but it permitted Mr. Post to fly as high as fifteen-thousand meters. That was higher than any person had ever flown. Mister Post did not know it, but he had designed the first real spacesuit. His suit is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25